From IT to BT (Business Technology)
A lot has been written (and rightfully so) about the need to better align and to foster collaboration between the Business and Information Technology (IT). Traditionally this has been necessary because of the typically disparate skills and backgrounds of the people working on the business and technical sides of the enterprise.
In the early days of information technology when computers represented a brave new world that had such people in it that were typically electrical engineers and mathematicians, they spoke a language that the business world didn’t understand. They were so consumed with the difficulties and intricacies of the emerging technology that they had no time to dedicate to day to day business matters.
Today, rapid advancements in technology are becoming so commonplace that the next generation of college graduates will never have lived in a world without the Internet, laptop computers and cell phones that have more processing power and functionality than even the best desktop computers had less than two decades ago.
Our brave new world is seeing a dramatic increase in number of people with skills and knowledge in both business and technology and I believe that in the near future Information Tecnology (IT) will transition simply to Business Technology (BT).
If you ask me, it’s long overdue.
Tags: Business, Technology, Trends
Posted in Business, Technology, Trends | 1 Comment »
Absolutely agree that the world of geeks and nerds is giving way to a world of hybrids, happy dealing both with technology and commercial issues.
We are still left with the problem that IT colonised the word information early while actually focussing on the technology. The result is that to this day many people, and particularly many senior people in organisations confuse managing the technology with managing information
As the technology matures still further, and the technical wizards increasingly make the “difficulties and intricacies” you speak of ever more hidden from the business, I believe we will see the rise of true Information Management functions in all successful organisations
The issue will not be of IT becoming BT (a scary thought for us Brits where BT stands for something rather different!) but of Technology functions coming to work hand in hand with Information Management to realise a true Information Age